In-Conversation is a series of oral histories with descendants of the Garcitas Freedmen's Community (also known as the Garcitas Freedom Community or Colony) - both names are used interchangeably. The use of the hyphen in 'In-Conversation' is deliberate in that it positions conversation as a relationship of reciprocity, of shared knowledge and of co-constructing the narrative of the community rather than simply an interview or a recorded conversation.
Rooted in Black Geographies and the work of preservation activism, the series examines how descendant memory, lived experience, and ancestral knowledge shape our understanding of Black spatial histories and the communities that emerged post-Emancipation. At the core of this is the concept of Ancestral Intelligence, which is one of the three components of artist and researcher Robin North's AI3 framework (Archival Intelligence, Ancestral Intelligence, and Augmented Interrogation). Ancestral Intelligence is the recognition of oral tradition, family archives, lived experience and the intergenerational relationships to land and structures as forms of historical evidence.
The series is both a record of lived memory and a call to action for descendants across the generations to get involved in the process of preservation. It is through oral history, visual history and creative production that In-Conversation positions the descendants as active participants in the process of re-making their own history and in the process of interpreting the significance of the land that their ancestors lived on and the structures they built. It is through the lens of Ancestral Intelligence that the series positions descendant knowledge not simply as historical evidence but as the very methodology of interpretation through which Black geographies and Black placemaking are made visible. It therefore preserves the history of Garcitas for the future and challenges present preservation institutions to recognize the value of ancestral knowledge and the lived experience of descendants, which have historically been excluded from the preservation process.